Managing Plenty Tasks with Limited Time

Once in a while in life, we come to that point when we have lots of work to do with limited time to get them done. It’s not a good condition to get into, but sometimes we can’t avoid it. When it’s not properly managed, you may break down and fail to meet your deadline. However, when you can manage your plenty tasks within the limited time available to you, you satisfy your boss, clients and feel good about yourself.

That’s why in this series of BrojidStepUp, entitled Managing Plenty Tasks with Limited Time, I want to share with you thoughts I have come to know, practised and benefited from that can help you manage a situation where you have a lot to do with limited time.

Don’t Panic; Be Cool

Generally, there is a tendency to get scared and eventually panic when the deadline is very close yet there are volumes of work yet to be tidied up. This panic is understandable when you consider that you may disappoint your boss, lose a job or fail in your personal goal.

I mean, a student that has volumes of materials to cover before exam, yet has limited time to do that before the exam starts has every reason to panic. The business man that knows he needs to make certain volume of sales to pay his children’s school fees but have a limited time before school opens will most likely panic. The career woman that has commitment in her family or church and yet lots of work to do will panic when it appears as if her time is too short to handle all that she has to attend to.

However, despite the justifications for panic, I dare say, don’t panic; calm down!

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Now, let’s assume you know very well that things are about to go awry and because of that you become afraid and allow your fear to mature into panic and then emotional tension. This doesn’t ameliorate the impending damage. In fact, it makes it surer and even more fatal.

However, when you are calm, you, at least, achieve emotional stability that will help you manage the damage if it eventually comes. More importantly, when you calm down, you assume the state of mind that will eventually help you avert or drastically reduce the damage that may be done if you fail to finish the task on your table before the deadline.

Let me show you what happens when you panic. You see, when you become afraid and eventually tensed up because of the reality of not meeting your deadline on time, you eventually lose your concentration and your performance drops without your realizing it. Now, this is both bad for your health and counterproductive!

Let me show you why.

You need certain degree of calmness and emotional stability in the midst of chaos to be able to get anything done. If you get tensed up, you lose your calmness which is necessary to be able to think properly and execute your work efficiently. You lose big time! Meanwhile, such tension, if it is sustained over a long time and/or happens often, releases excess amount of stress hormones in your blood stream and the possible complication is heart related diseases.

Here is another truth, when you get tensed because of fear, you either give up on your pursuit or put in haste that makes waste. You start rushing what should have been done calmly. You start doing two things at the same time that should have been done differently; thereby ending up with poor performance. In fact, avoidable mistakes will abound in your work.

And for a student, what you read at that point hardly gets stored in your long term memory. At best you cram your materials to write exams and forget less than 48 hours after the exam. That has been the case of most people who are last minute readers.

My point is that when you get scared and allow pressure to take over you, you lose eventually. You may seem to be rushing to get result; but ultimately, you will lose. That’s why my message to you today is this, no matter the volume of work you have to do within a limited time, don’t allow it lead you to panic; calm down.

Instead of allowing the realization of voluminous work on your table to lead you into panic, let it propel you to work efficiently; let it propel you to strategise and stick to your strategy. Develop a system of getting result despite the limited time. You will be better off with a strategy for success than coming under waste-making pressure.

Once in a while we get into situations where we have plenty things to do; yet limited time to get them done. At that point, one temptation is to give up on your goals; another is to get overwhelmed by the task that you panic and allow tension build up in you. While this is understandable, it’s most certainly not fruitful and hastens the day of the impending danger of not meeting your deadline! Therefore, calm down so that you can be in the right frame of mind to salvage the situation. Your calm mind is required to get the best result possible in that situation. It will help you see how to beat the deadline; but a tensed mind can’t see the way forward!

Joseph 'Brojid' Dinwoke, Radio producer/OAP at Radio Nigeria Voice96.7FM, and publicist, is the curator of Brojid.com.
At Brojid World, he creates contents and provides training, mentoring, coaching and inspiration for peak performance in your life and work through blog posts, podcasts, books and training.
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